Plants Under a Hot Sun
Even with watering, most plants have difficulty compensating their perspiration with the intake of water by their roots in very hot weather.
Heat and drought are accentuated when plants are on a mound facing the sun or in a rockery where the stones retain the heat.
The only solution is to choose plants which are adapted to the conditions. Luckily nature has foreseen this and species which are adapted even to the most extreme conditions can be found.
Choosing the Adapted Plants
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Shrubs
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Hardy Perennials
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Reinforce the resistance of your plants to drought
You can reinforce the resistance of your plants to drought by the way you garden :
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In garden boxes you should enrich the compost with pellets which retain water. When you water, they will absorb this and will then serve as a water reserve for your plants. As the earth dries, they will release this water little by litle. As these products are expensive, they are not suitable for use in the garden.
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Water efficiently ! Do so in the evening when the sun has gone down, in large quantities each time and leave the maximun amount of time between each operation. Use a fine flow of water in order to give the water time to penetrate deep into the soil, rather than letting it stay on the surface.
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Keep the water in place for as long as possible by covering the earth with mulching (straw, linen flakes, pine bark, wood chips...).To avoid evaporation, 6 to 8 cms. of mulching are required. Do so after a heavy watering.